The Heights

by Juliet Bell

  ‘I mean it, Heathcliff. I’ll call them.’

  ‘Heathcliff?’ Luke’s voice alongside her was thin and uncertain. ‘That’s Heathcliff?’

  Her father stood still for a second before he nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘My dad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kate crawled back over to the window and looked out again. The man who had been thumping on the door had stopped, and stepped back to stare at the front of the house. He was looking upstairs at one of the windows. It might have been the window to her dad’s room. His face was dark and his hair was all wild. Kate shivered.

  The younger man was scruffy, but he didn’t seem so scary. ‘You don’t need to call the police. We just want to come in.’ He didn’t sound so mad.

  ‘I think they’ve calmed down.’

  Her dad dropped the phone back onto the cradle and stood up. ‘Wait here.’ He walked out into the hallway.

  Kate darted over to stand just inside the door and listened as he put the chain across the front door before he opened it a crack. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want the boy.’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  That was a lie. Her father never told lies.

  ‘I know he’s here.’ There was another crashing thump on the door.

  She peered into the hallway in time to see the chain being wrenched out from its slot and the door swing open. Her dad staggered backwards as the crazy-looking man shoved past him into the house.

  And then the man stopped. His mouth fell open. His hands, previously balled up tight, dropped limp by his side. His eyes bored into Kate.

  ‘Cathy…’

  He took a faltering step towards her, raising one hand as if to touch her face.

  Kate stepped back. She didn’t want him to touch her. He was looking at her as if he wanted to swallow her up.

  ‘Go back in the living room, Kate.’ Her father’s voice was pressing and urgent.

  She wanted to. She wanted to run away from this dark and intense man, but her feet wouldn’t move.

  ‘Now, Kate.’ Dad never spoke to her like that. She retreated back into the room, shutting the door behind her. Part of her was relieved to have that barrier between herself and Heathcliff, but part of her was furious at being excluded from the most interesting thing to happen for ages. Luke had plonked himself down on the sofa.

  ‘Aren’t you bothered?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Well, that’s your dad.’

  ‘I don’t care. Mum said he was no good. Said we were better off without him.’

  Kate was overwhelmed. The idea of having a father you knew nothing about was impossible to understand.

  ‘Don’t you want to meet him?’

  Luke shrugged.

  ‘What if he tries to take you away?’

  ‘What if he does? It’s just another place.’

  Harry stayed in the archway of the front door. This weren’t the sort of house you just barged into, but he wanted to stay with Heathcliff. Heathcliff had always stayed with him. He recognised the tall, thin man who was cowering at the other end of the hallway. He’d seen him a few times around town. One time, when he’d followed Heathcliff to the graveyard, he’d watched as Heathcliff waited for this thin streak of piss to go before he went and lay down by her side. So this was Edward Linton. The man Heathcliff hated more than anyone else in the world.

  He’d never seen the girl before, but Heathcliff was acting as if he knew her. And he seemed to have forgotten about the boy they’d come to get.

  Heathcliff shoved past the skinny, useless bloke and made for the door the girl had disappeared through.

  ‘Don’t go in there!’ Maybe Edward wasn’t so useless after all. He’d managed to wedge himself between Heathcliff and the door. In Harry’s experience, getting between Heathcliff and some place he wanted to be was never a good idea. He hovered behind them.

  Heathcliff reached for the door handle. This time Edward reacted, raising his hands to Heathcliff’s chest and pushing him back. ‘Wait!’

  ‘Cathy.’

  Harry barely heard the word. Heathcliff’s face had that lost look he sometimes got when he sat alone in the small bedroom upstairs.

  Everything was silent for a second. Harry could hear Heathcliff’s breathing in the quiet of the hallway, rough and shallow.

  ‘That’s Kate. My daughter. You stay away from her.’ Edward’s voice had a hard edge to it. Harry wondered how long that would last if Heathcliff really set his mind to getting to the girl.

  At last Edward took half a step backwards, moving slightly to the side, not squaring off any more. ‘I’ll get the boy, but only so you can see him. Then I want you out of my house.’

  ‘He’s mine and I’m not leaving here without him.’

  Edward leaned back against the wall and exhaled. ‘You’ll let him come and visit, though?’

  ‘If I feel like it.’

  Edward didn’t have a choice so far as Harry could tell. Heathcliff wasn’t given to negotiation.

  ‘Wait here.’

  Edward disappeared through the door the girl had gone through earlier. The living room probably, Harry thought. He wasn’t sure. He’d only been in houses like this a few times before, back when he was little enough to fit through a window. All he’d been worried about then was finding the door and getting it open. He wasn’t about to stop and ask for a guided tour.

  Heathcliff was still standing in the middle of the hallway. He put a hand against the wall.

  ‘Cathy.’

  Harry barely heard the word. He struggled to remember Aunt Cathy. He’d gone into her old bedroom at home one day when Heathcliff wasn’t there. There was an old newspaper cutting on the window ledge. It had been torn in half, so all he could see was the woman in the big white dress. That was Cathy. He figured Edward must have been the one torn out of the picture. He thought maybe he remembered seeing her that day. But it was a long time ago. He would probably have forgotten all about her if Heathcliff wasn’t always going on.

  Cathy was all Heathcliff ever thought about.

  So this was where she had lived. Harry looked around. She’d done all right for herself then. From the Heights to this.

  Heathcliff shuffled down the hallway towards the living-room door, inching his fingers along the wall. ‘It was like she was here. It could have been her. Back again. Just like before.’

  ‘Cathy’s dead.’

  He shouldn’t have said that. He knew, almost before he spoke, that he needed to swallow the words back again and push them down into his gut where Heathcliff could never hear them.

  Heathcliff swung round, his fists clenching as his eyes lost their faraway look. Harry raised one arm to block the blow he knew was coming.

  The door to the living room clicked open. ‘This is Luke.’

  Heathcliff swung back. Harry exhaled. There’d be something coming his way later, no doubt about that, but for the moment he was out of the crosshairs.

  Heathcliff spat at the lad. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘This is Luke. Your son.’

  The lad didn’t look up. He was another scrawny little thing. Harry frowned. Another mouth to feed out of his dole and whatever money Heathcliff remembered to give him.

  Heathcliff shrugged. ‘Come on then.’

  He started towards the front door. The boy didn’t move.

  ‘Get the lad, Harry.’

  Harry stepped forward and took the boy by the arm.

  ‘You’d better come. You don’t want him to get mad at you.’

  The lad shrugged, but he followed Harry out the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  2008

  Lockwood shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do right now was drag himself over to that depressing municipal office to talk to Ellen Dean one more time. If it was any other case, he’d tell himself to forget the whole thing. He was probably looking for something that wasn’t there. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the twisted na
il. He put it down on the table and stared at it. He remembered the sound of the nail gun so close to his head. The sting of the hot metal on his flesh and the sense of injustice and unfinished business was there again. Time to up the ante, he thought. He picked up the phone and dialled quickly. This time Ellen Dean could come to him. He knew what she’d say. Heathcliff was the boy’s father. There weren’t any reports of the kid truanting or getting in trouble, so there was no reason for her to be involved.

  He set a meeting time, later in the afternoon, to give her time to fret and worry and get herself worked up, which meant he had time too. Time to do the thing he’d been putting off since that first day in the graveyard. He could read paperwork until he was blue in the face. He could talk to every single person in this godforsaken town. But you never really knew until you looked your man in the face and asked the questions.

  He decided to walk up to the Heights estate. That was another thing Lockwood believed – you couldn’t get a proper feel for a place, or the people who lived there, from inside a car. You had to walk where they walked. The hill from town to the top of the estate was steeper than he remembered, or maybe he was just older than he ought to be. Old enough for people back down in London to be having a whip round and picking out his carriage clock. That’d probably be all there was time for once he got home.

  The estate was quiet. He’d seen how close to abandoned it was from driving round, but on foot it was eerie. During the strike, when they’d sent a few of the London blokes no one knew to wander round the place in plain clothes, the place had bustled. There had been a weariness about it after months with not enough money coming in and not enough food on tables, but there’d been people on the streets, in and out of people’s houses, taking supplies up to the blokes on the picket line, going about their business.

  There were still a few curtains at windows further up the hill, though, and then there was Heathcliff’s house. Two houses really, only crudely knocked together, so far as Lockwood could tell. He’d checked the records. Both were in Heathcliff’s name.

  He took a deep breath and rapped on the door and then listened. You always listened after you knocked – for sounds of people moving around, internal doors being slammed shut, toilets being flushed. Lockwood was used to his knocks at doors being accompanied by the sounds of stashes being hidden inside.

  After a bit of shuffling and muffled calls the door swung open. It wasn’t Heathcliff. It was Mick’s boy. Harry. Lockwood cleared his throat. ‘I’m looking for Heathcliff Earnshaw.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Lockwood flashed his warrant card. ‘DCI Lockwood. I’m reviewing the circumstances of Mr Earnshaw’s son’s death.’

  The youth shrugged. ‘What’s to review? He were alive. Now he ain’t.’

  Lockwood bristled. ‘Which is unusual for a teenager.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘So, is Mr Earnshaw here?’

  ‘I’ll have to see.’ The lad pushed the door closed again. Lockwood resisted the urge to shove a boot in the closing door. He had no reason to search or rush in. He’d keep it cordial if he could. No need to get anyone’s guard up.

  They kept him waiting. Of course they kept him waiting, right to the point that he was about to knock again, and then the door swung open. Up close, framed by the doorway, Heathcliff had an aura about him. When Lockwood had seen him at Cathy’s grave, he’d been a forlorn figure – lost and raging. As a kid hanging around the picket line, he’d been scrawny, wiry, Lockwood remembered, slightly tensed, slightly on his toes, ready to run or fight. He still looked ready to fight, and despite Heathcliff’s haggard appearance, Lockwood wasn’t entirely sure who would win.

  The silence hung between them for a few seconds before Lockwood realised the other man wasn’t going to speak. ‘I’m reviewing the investigation into your son’s death.’

  Heathcliff nodded.

  ‘So I wondered if I could ask you a few questions.’

  Heathcliff stared over Lockwood’s head. ‘Nothing to say.’

  ‘But I’m sure you want to get to the bottom of what happened?’ Lockwood was sure he wouldn’t want that at all. Heathcliff was at the bottom of what happened. And Lockwood was going to prove it. Somehow. He wasn’t going to end his career with another failure.

  ‘Don’t really care.’

  ‘He was your son.’

  ‘He were a Linton. Weak, useless thing.’

  Lockwood stopped. He was unnerved, and that didn’t happen often. He’d been scared many times since that night when the nail scraped past his head. But eye to eye with a suspect he knew what to expect. They did three things. They denied whatever it was you were asking about. They crumbled and told you everything. Or they justified their actions in whatever way they could. What they never did was tell you the victim was useless, or talk about them like they were a stain on their shirt. Heathcliff didn’t care about his own son, and didn’t have the humanity to pretend otherwise.

  ‘So you’d fallen out with him before he died?’

  Heathcliff shook his head. ‘Nothing to fall out about. And it were an accident. That’s what the police said. That’s what everyone said.’

  ‘I’ve read what the police said.’

  Heathcliff widened his mouth into something that ought to have been a smile. ‘So you know then, don’t you?’

  ‘There was one detail.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Luke had a head injury. Apparently incurred before the landslip.’

  Heathcliff stared him directly in the face. ‘So maybe he fell.’

  ‘Did you see him fall?’

  ‘How could I? I weren’t there.’

  Lockwood didn’t react. He’d hardly been expecting a different story, but he was here now. In for a penny. ‘I do need to talk to the other people who were in the house that night.’

  ‘They won’t tell you anything different.’

  ‘Maybe not. But still.’

  Heathcliff moved back into the hallway, letting the door swing open behind him. Lockwood followed.

  In the hallway, a rough arch joined the two houses. It had been knocked through, and no one had bothered with such niceties as plaster or wallpaper. There were a couple of old sofas, and a coffee table, its top stained with the rings of many coffee mugs and beer glasses. The whole house reeked of cigarettes and stale curry. If it hadn’t been for the fact that there were three people living there, you’d call the place deserted. There was one picture on the mantelpiece. Lockwood recognised the wild hair and bright eyes from the files he’d been reading, and he’d seen her, hadn’t he? Back when she was a kid and he wasn’t very much more. Cathy. Nothing else in here was personal, though. No other photos. No ornaments or certificates or pictures on the walls.

  A younger man and a woman joined them. Lockwood considered this strange little family. Heathcliff had stayed standing, leaning on the mantelpiece, next to an old gas fire, dominating the room not so much physically, but certainly with his presence. On the faded sofa Harry sat next to the young woman. Lockwood stopped himself from flicking his eyes back to the photo on the fireplace. It could almost be her, but only almost. When she moved her face a certain way or the light caught her from a certain angle, then, maybe, but at other times the differences seemed to scream at you. A little bit thinner in the face, a slight hook to her nose, and something altogether quieter and more considered in the way she looked out at you. But there was enough of her mother in her to leave you in no doubt that this was Cathy’s daughter.

  ‘We’ve got a guest.’ Heathcliff growled the words out. ‘So offer him a drink, woman.’

  The young woman nodded and sprung up from her seat. ‘Would you like some tea?’

  Lockwood shook his head and watched as she glanced back towards Heathcliff before she sat down again. What was that look for? Permission maybe? She was young. And there was something about her. Lockwood’s job was to protect people like her from men like Heathcliff. It was simple. It was what gave him pur
pose.

  ‘So, you are…?’

  ‘Kate Linton.’

  Heathcliff took half a step towards the girl, but she corrected herself in time. ‘Earnshaw. I call myself Kate Earnshaw.’

  ‘She’s Luke’s widow.’ Heathcliff almost spat the words out.

  ‘Widow?’ Luke had been what? Sixteen when he died? Lockwood hadn’t read about a wedding in the file.

  Harry shook his head. ‘They weren’t married.’

  ‘They were going to be,’ Heathcliff said firmly.

  The pair on the couch exchanged a glance. Lockwood continued. ‘And you’re Harry Earnshaw. Mick Earnshaw’s son?’

  The lad must have been well into his twenties and he was built like a brick outhouse, but he seemed to be willing to let Heathcliff push him around. That was interesting. He wondered what hold Heathcliff had on him.

  ‘Right.’ Ideally he’d have liked to talk to Harry and Kate on their own, but he didn’t have grounds to take either of them to the station, and he couldn’t see either of them volunteering to come. He turned towards Heathcliff. ‘Could you give me a few minutes alone with…?’

  ‘I’ll stay.’

  ‘Is that okay with you?’ He directed the question at Harry and Kate, already knowing the answer.

  The pair nodded mutely.

  ‘Fine. So where were you both the night Luke Earnshaw died?’

  ‘Here,’ Harry answered quickly. Alongside him Kate nodded in confirmation.

  ‘All evening?’

  A silent nod from Kate. Harry shrugged. “Til it happened. I was one of the ones that ran up there when we heard it.’

  ‘And Mr Earnshaw…’ He nodded towards Heathcliff. ‘Where was he?’

  There was a longer silence this time. Lockwood kept the smile off his face. There was definitely something. He just needed to find the right loose thread to pull on. Maybe he would actually do it. Maybe after twenty-five years he might actually get his hands on the one that got away. He’d get justice. He’d rescue the girl. Then, he told himself, he’d be ready to retire.

  ‘I was here.’

  Lockwood kept his attention focused on the two younger figures huddled together on the couch. ‘Is that right?’